Authors and Writers Associated with Morristown / With a Chapter on Historic Morristown

by Julia Keese Colles

Alfred Vail.

To Alfred Vail belongs a place of honor, as the author of a valuable book on "The American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph", and a place of honor, also, as having been the man to perceive, at a critical moment, the importance to the world of the great invention of Professor Morse. He was among the spectators who witnessed the first operation of the electro-magnetic telegraph at the New York University and saw then, for the first time, the apparatus. Of this occasion he writes as follows: "I was struck with the rude machine, containing, as I believed, the germ of what was destined to produce great changes in the condition and relations of mankind." Again, he says, "I rejoiced to carry out the plans of Professor Morse. I promised him assistance, provided he would admit me to a share of the invention,—to which proposition he assented. I returned to my rooms, locked my door, threw myself upon the bed and gave myself up to the reflections upon the mighty results which were certain to follow the introduction of this new agent in serving the wants of the world". With this intense conviction, young Vail communicated his enthusiasm to his father, Judge Stephen Vail, who owned the Speedwell Iron Works and who generously supplied the means by which the plans for the electric telegraph were put into successful operation. It is an interesting fact that these same Speedwell Iron Works are variously connected with the history of the country, for "here was forged the shaft of the Savannah, the first steamship that crossed the Atlantic and here were manufactured the tires, axles and cranks of the first American locomotives."

In The Century for April 1888, is a most interesting article, entitled "The American Inventors of the Telegraph, with Special Reference to the Services of Alfred Vail". This is exhaustive of the subject, was written by Franklin Leonard Pope, and was supervised by Mrs. Alfred Vail, as she tells us, and the statements fortified by documents, correspondence and designs. To The Century editors and to Mr. James Cummings Vail, of Morris Plains, son of Alfred Vail, we are indebted for the use of the plate of the Speedwell Iron Works, redrawn from an ancient invoice, the age of which is not known. The illustration of the "Factory" in which the first successful trial and, afterwards, the first public exhibition, of the electric telegraph took place, is from a photograph of the building as it stands at the present day, on the lot in which stands the homestead house, now occupied by Mrs. Lidgerwood.

"I have always understood", says Mr. J. C. Vail, (Jan'y 5, 1893), "that the room in which my father and Baxter (his young assistant) worked and called the 'work shop', was in an old stone building within the Iron Works enclosure, between the bridge and Morristown and is still standing, and is the only stone building within that enclosure."

Of these buildings and associations, Mrs. John H. Lidgerwood, the granddaughter of Judge Vail, now living on the place, at Speedwell, writes as follows, Dec. 12, 1892:

"My grandfather makes but three entries in his diary:

"'1838, January 6th. Dr. Gale came this morning. They (Prof. Morse, Alfred Vail, and the Dr.) have worked the Tellegraph in the Factory this evening for the first time.'

"'10th. Mr. Morse and Alfred are working and showing the Tellegraph.'

"'11th. A hundred came to see the Tellegraph work.'

"The old house", continues Mrs. Lidgerwood, "in which my grandfather then lived, still remains near the foot of the hill nearest the town. The interior has been entirely changed and I never knew the room occupied by Professor Morse.

"The shop, in which the machine was constructed, and which was called the 'work shop', has also been rebuilt. Its four walls are all that are left of the original building. The floor of that room was taken away to make a one story building and the windows were put in the roof. It is now entirely vacant and stands on the side of the dam opposite the saw mill, the gable end of the old shop facing the road. One end of the foundation was partly torn away by the freshet that destroyed the old bridge. The experiments were made in a building called 'The Factory', which is at the foot of our lawn. It was built for a Cotton Factory, but only used for making buttons, owing, I believe, to some fault in its construction.

"My grandfather has told me frequently that the machine was placed on the first floor, and about three miles of copper wire, insulated by being wound with cotton yarn, was wound around the walls of the second story. There are some hooks still in the side walls but I do not know if they are the same. I have still a small portion of the original wire used in the experiments. I do not know the age of any of these buildings. The works were probably here long before the Revolution. I have heard my grandfather say there was a forge here at that time."

The machine used on the occasion to which Judge Vail refers in his diary, and on which he himself had sent the first message of all, "a patient waiter is no loser," is now loaned by the family to the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D. C.

From the time the first telegraphic message was sent by Alfred Vail from the "Factory" at Speedwell and received by Professor Morse two miles away, and the next experiment when Morse and Vail operated with complete success through ten miles of space,—to the final triumph at Washington, many and great were the perils and moments of anguish through which the inventors passed. It was on the 24th of May, 1844, when the supreme test of the telegraph was made at Washington and the message was sent to Mr. Vail in Baltimore, in the words selected by Miss Annie G. Ellsworth and taken from Numbers xxiii: 23, "What hath God wrought."

During these years Alfred Vail, it is claimed, had "not only become a full partner in the ownership of the invention, but had supplied the entire resources and facilities for obtaining patents and for constructing the apparatus for exhibition at Washington; and more than this, he had introduced essential improvements not only in the mechanism, but in the fundamental principles of the telegraph." Vail felt that Morse had not acknowledged, as he expected, his (Vail's) part in the invention or fully recognized his rights of partnership. Of this, the Hon. Amos Kendall, the friend and associate of both, has said: "If justice is done, the name of Alfred Vail will forever stand associated with that of Samuel F. B. Morse in the history and introduction into public use of the electro-magnetic telegraph."

Mr. Vail's book, which has place in most of the prominent libraries of Europe and America, was published in 1845 and is entitled "The American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph with the Reports of Congress and a description of all Telegraphs known, employing Electricity or Galvinism". It is illustrated by eighty-one wood engravings.

FACTORY AT SPEEDWELL.
IN WHICH THE FIRST EXHIBITION OF THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH TOOK PLACE.